Marinate Your Burgers This Summer For 100x The Flavor

We're always adding to our list of essential tips for grilling perfect burgers, but marinating our patties before grilling or broiling wasn't previously on our radar. And yet, according to multiple sources on the web, we may just have been missing out. When you take your burger patties and lovingly immerse them in a bath of sauce and spices before cooking, you potentially unlock deeper flavor and greater tenderness than ever before. Best of all, the extra flavors you impart can be customized by the grillsmith.

A very basic burger marinade can be achieved with abundant black pepper, garlic, seasoned salt, a splash of vinegar, and some Worcestershire sauce in a carrying liquid. That last is usually a neutral oil, but can even be beer! You can get really imaginative with what you put in your marinade, depending on what flavor profile you want to cultivate in your burgers. How about fresh grated ginger for an almost spicy punch of bright flavor, sesame oil for an Asian twist, or some brown sugar to balance all that umami goodness with mellow sweetness?

No matter what's in your marinade, the secret is to soak the patties in a covered dish for at least 30 minutes in the fridge. A longer marinade will allow more flavor to permeate, but you run a greater risk of the burgers falling apart (more on that in a moment). Not the biggest fan of beef? You can also use a burger marinade on patties made of chicken, turkey, or bison — to say nothing of the long list of plant-based meat alternatives!

"How do I marina[t]e my 80% burgers without them falling apart into goop?" one Redditor asked the internet beseechingly, highlighting one potential pitfall of this ingenious burger-making bonus step. It was widely acknowledged by other commenters on the forum that adding a large amount of moisture to ground meat did, in fact, give it the tendency to fall apart. Luckily, there are some possible solutions, although not all will be pleasing to burger fiends.

One option is to choose leaner beef than what you normally would select for burgers. The best burgers start with the right meat-to-fat ratio, usually 80/20 or 85/15 at the leanest. Opting for a 90/10 beef mix, which has quite a bit less fat in the grind, will offer more room for moisture from the marinade, but could make your burgers dry out on the heat unless you handle them expertly. We've also heard of some internet denizens using one or more eggs in their ground beef mixture for additional cohesion. With this method, you run the risk of purists claiming that the burger is more like meatloaf on a bun, but you might nail the texture. 

An alternative that seems cromulent to a lot more users is marinating your ground beef (or other protein) before you form it into patties. Make the marinade part of your burger mix, then pop the whole bowl in the fridge for a bit before shaping your patties. The flavor will soak into every crevice of your burgers, and you'll reportedly achieve much the same tenderizing benefits that you get from marinating shaped patties.